A player brought this up recently.

What exactly is an aim? What is someone doing when they shoot at someone aiming? Why are you penalised for attempting to hit a specific area?

This rationale is that when you, say, point a gun at someone you're going to have to do some kind of aiming otherwise you won't have any chance of hitting them. But what are you aiming at if you aren't actually AIMING? My feeling is that you are aiming 'centre mass', the middle of the target. But there is obviously a difference between this and the aim action.

I was thinking that perhaps rather than have a random hit location the location always defaults to the torso because that's where 'pointing the gun but not actually aiming' generally hits. That, or making the chance of randomly hitting a limb or head a lot smaller than it is now, like this:

01-05: Head

06-10: Arm (closest to attacker, or 50% randomisation). I'm not really a fan of having both arms as seperate entries because it messes with the chances of hitting one over the other with modifiers

11-95: Body

96-00: Leg

Called shots would obviously only be against limbs, as the torso is always the default target.

It's just a little confusing that shooting isn't aiming and called shots aren't aiming either (in fact give a negative modifier to the aim's positive modifier).

Thoughts?

Hellebore

Yes, essentially shooting or otherwise attacking is going for centre mass and concentrating more on hitting somewhere , be it a lucky headshot or a flailing limb or whatever (thus the random hit location chart). Rather than being picky and going for a specific part of the target (Called Shot), which could result in a greater chance of missing.

The combat action "Aim", which can be used in melee also, simulates a more concerted attempt at hitting the target - be it a called shot or not. It's a simple fact that if you stand there and concentrate on hitting the target you are much more likely to hit it rather than if you had just jogged around a corner and taken a from-the-hip pop at it.

(ie you cant move, Aim and Attack in the same round)

I've had players confused about called shots and aiming, but only initially. Generally explain that it's just the terminology the game uses once and you are fine thereafter.

Hmmm, well I sort of agreed with them.

A called shot IS an Aim, an aim at a specific location on the target rather than the target in general.

I'm not sure how you can Aim at a target without aiming at part of it, it's not much of an Aim then is it? It's more like pointing the gun in the general direction of the target. Aim seems more like 'brace' or something (although that's a seperate rule as well), where you brace your self to fire at the target. Surely if you AIM at a person you are going to hit a specific area. So when you want to shoot the arm you are aiming at the arm, otherwise you wouldn't be able to hit it.

The centre mass idea I thought would explain it better. If you aren't aiming at any particular location then the majority of shots taken should hit the torso, because that's the largest target. If you count up the amount of points alotted to non torso locations it actually ends up more than the torso. So in dark heresy you are more likely to NOT hit the body than to hit it. (40% chance of hitting the body, 60% chance of hitting non body locations). If the chance of hitting non body locations was lower then I think head and arm Called Shots would be much more important and prevalent. At the moment you're better off hoping the dice roll hits a favourable location than taking a -20 to hit a specific location. At least with former you will still hit SOMETHING.

Hellebore

Its an abstraction for sure, but a pretty common mechanic in my experience.

Hellebore said:

*shrug*

If a squad of guardsmen (BS30) were up against an Ork Nob, I suspect that called shots to the ork's head (modified difficulty: 10%) is better than shooting to hit something and hoping to hit the unarmoured head (6% of head shot, 24% chance of hitting kustom armour and failing to penetrate).

Assuming the squad aimed and fired, it would be 20% head shots vs 8% head shots. That's a lot better odds.

In most other circumstances, you wouldn't bother with chancy shots since the armour disparity between hit locations is less. Still, sometimes you just have to shoot someone's arm off and the called shot rules work pretty well for that.

The way I read it:

Snap shot (not aimed) A shot from the hip or slightly raised. You're just shooting at the target.

Aimed shot You bring your lasgun up, brace it against your shoulder, look down the sights, and try to hit your target with some degree of accuracy.

Called shot Rather than just going for a hit, you concentrate your efforts on a specific area of your target. Whether you bring your gun's sights up to your eye or not, you're trying for the target's leg, arm, or head rather than just trying to hit them.

If you were shooting at someone who was quite far away (inside a window in the hab block accross the street) and you took an aim action, you wouldn't neccessarily be aiming for their head or anything, you'd just be trying to concentrate on shooting properly rather than wasting bullets because you will probably just waste ammunition if you're not aiming properly.

In the heat of combat, remember that a character's turn is only a few seconds long. With a half-action aim , they're not staring down their scope for ages, following their target and tracking their every step; they're just bringing their gun up and then shooting. The shot might hit the target in the body, or anywhere else. If a character takes a full-action to aim then I'd say they were preparing for something either at long range, and so needed the increased chance to hit, or they're then going for a called shot. But maybe they just really need to hit this target. It doesn't matter where, but their circumstances mean that they have to put extra concentration into shooting.

I hope that helps.

Hellebore said:

I think you are looking at the % chance to hit each body part the wrogn way. It is about math.

Chance to hit head is 1-10. As you roll your d100 and you got 30 in balistic skill and do a strait shoot with no modifier. Now I roll my d100

I got 27 so I hit to see where I hit I I look up in 72, which is right leg

new roll and I got 57 and miss but if I had hit it be right leg.

The chance to hit the body is if you roll 13, 14, 15, 16, 04, 05, 06, 07, 23-26, thise are all the chances I have with roling against 30 so I got 12/30 chance to hit in body this is 40% on the table it is from 31-70 wich equals ti 39%. So pritty close.

If you change the table to hit you alsoo have to remmber you swoop around the numbers. So on Hellbores table the chances of hitting the leg is only on a succesfull roll of 69 79 89 99 00. Now how many does have a balistic skill this high even with modifiers. You realy need to have the low numbers with you counting from 90 - 00 (not 91 as you hit nothing on 00) now you will hit leg on 09, 19, 29, 39, 49, 59 . This goes for the otgher body parts also, unless you want to roll again to see where you hit and then roll again to see if it is right or left arm/leg.

But the current hit table is for simplyfying things and speed up combat, but if you wanta more realistic hit table and want to take the ekstra time then I see no alarm.

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Now about the aim on specific body part it should be easier to hit the body than the head, and even if ou miss the body part you want to hit there is a chance you might hit another body part. What GM have ever missed the chance to let their players hit the hostage instead of the target hidding behind the hostage ?. Now I would still take the -20 to hit the body part but if he miss with 1-5 he hits another body part instead. Maybe have a -15 modifier to hit the body instead of -20

It wouldn't be a swap, it would be an additional roll like in WFRP.

Hellebore

I really don't see this as a problem or a bad misrepresentation of reality. The system makes perfect sense to me and works fine as it is.

A normal attack is focused on the target's centre mass. It is therefore more likely to hit the body (40%, as oppossed to 10% for head and each arm, and 15% for each leg), but might hit a limb instead, to account for the target moving and the attack being not-precisely-placed.

An aimed attack represents having the same odds of hitting each area, you are simply taking an extra moment to make sure your attack is more acurate, and more likely to hit somewhere .

A called shot is when you are focusing your attack more, concentrating on hitting a specific location, and is therefore more difficult to make.

Combining a called shot with an aim action allows you to spend time concentrating and working out the exact trajectory and timing to hit the desired location.